


If Ye Break Faith

by Miko



Series: We Shall Keep The Faith [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Betrayal, Break Up, F/M, First Love, Lost Love, Love Triangles, Open Relationships, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha's got a Plan. If it works out right Steve, Peggy, and Bucky will end up happy and she'll have the satisfaction of knowing she got them there. It might even be enough to make up for letting go of Steve in the process.</p><p><i>If</i> it works out right. </p><p> </p><p>This fic should be read in sequence with the rest of the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On nights when Steve and Natasha had no missions to do and Barnes was capable of handling the company, the four of them tended to spend the evening together. It was never planned, they just somehow would all end up in somebody’s quarters. Usually Steve’s or Peggy’s; Natasha was paranoid about having people in her living space, and Barnes needed to be able to retreat quickly to somewhere he felt secure if things did start to get overwhelming.

Tonight they were at Steve’s. Natasha had brought over a bottle of wine to celebrate the first successful training session Barnes had completed with the team, making his place among the Avengers semi-official. Mostly only she and Peggy were drinking it, but Steve had added a tiny splash of the Asgardian mead Thor had left him to two glasses for him and Barnes. It wasn’t enough to get either of them drunk - Natasha thought an intoxicated Barnes would pretty much be a recipe for guaranteed murder and anarchy - but it was enough to let them both relax and enjoy themselves a little.

At the moment Natasha was slung out over Steve’s couch, her stocking feet in his lap as he massaged them gently. It was such a stupidly clichéd thing to do, right out of a fifties sitcom, that it actually embarrassed Natasha a little. But there was no way in hell she was foregoing his damned amazing footrubs for the sake of her pride.

Peggy was wandering the room with her wineglass in hand, peering at the books, records, and knickknacks on Steve’s shelves. She and Steve were comparing what modern movies and books they’d seen and read, and what had been recommended to them by different people. Peggy still had far more to catch up on than Steve did, of course, but she’d taken to the internet like a duck to water and she was making good progress.

Barnes... Barnes was lurking, as he usually was, leaning in the kitchen doorway because he was too restless to sit down. Natasha thought it amusing that a sniper of his calibre found it so difficult to be still, but maybe he needed to use up all his energy so he didn’t feel the urge to move when he was working.

He’d started out the evening fairly well; the exercise with the team had clearly done him a lot of good, as had their willing acceptance of his place among them. He’d been open and, if not exactly chatty, at least engaged in the conversation. He’d even managed a few genuine smiles. 

As the night wore on, however, he’d grown quiet and slowly withdrawn further into himself. That wasn’t unusual at all, and Natasha wouldn’t have remarked on it except he’d added a new dimension to his brooding - he kept staring at her.

Not aggressively, at least. She wasn’t even sure he was aware he was doing it. In some ways it was more as if she’d become his object of focus while he thought about something else, because every time she caught him at it his expression was distant and thoughtful. Unless he started to turn angry or upset it probably wasn’t worth mentioning, but she couldn’t help glancing at him every so often in return.

When she looked at the room as a whole, it reminded her of the times she’d stayed with Clint and his family at their farm. Domestic, that was the word she wanted. In a weird and broken fashion that was unique to the four of them, anyway. They were all growing easy with each other, content just to be together, not necessarily needing to _do_ something to justify the company. That was both a good and a bad thing. 

Good, because it suited Natasha’s plans. She wanted them comfortable, accustomed to sharing personal space. The more time they spent around each other, the more Peggy and Barnes settled into their life together and the more Steve watched longingly as they did it, the closer Natasha came to being able to move on to the next stage. She’d started sowing the seeds for it already, planting the idea in Peggy’s head of being able to have both men instead of needing to choose between them.

Bad, because it was sucking Natasha in, too. The thought of _not_ being part of this strange little family unit they were creating was painful. She’d let herself get in too deep, far too deep, and the water was closing over her head fast. She needed to extract herself as quickly as possible, before she was beyond saving. 

For a little while, just barely, she had convinced herself with Bruce that maybe love was something she could have after all. That with the right person, under the right circumstances, it would be okay to open up and let herself believe in the possibility of something more.

Even when Wanda reminded her of who and what she truly was, Natasha had thought, maybe, she could still make it work. Bruce wanted out anyway, and he’d been starting to believe that she genuinely didn’t care that he couldn’t have sex. And she hadn’t. Sex she could get anywhere, anytime. It was meaningless to her for the most part, and she didn’t think she’d even have minded giving it up entirely if it was what he’d needed from her. That’s what toys were for.

But in the end she’d chosen to finish the job instead of run with him, and when he’d finally gone he’d left her behind. She didn’t blame him. In a way she was grateful. He’d driven home the lesson she’d learned long ago, but had somehow started to forget. 

Love, family, a place to call home... those were things that other people had. That other people _deserved_. Not her. The most she was allowed was to skirt around the edges and warm herself at other people’s fires, the way she’d done with Clint’s family and the way she was doing now with these three.

Steve’s confession the day Barnes had arrived had thrown her; she’d known he was growing too attached to her, that was made obvious by the fact that he’d chosen her over Peggy, but she’d thought she had at least another month or two before he started tossing the L-word around.

From the beginning it was inevitable Steve would fall for her eventually. He might have tried to convince himself that love and family were dreams he’d given up on as well, but as always Natasha could see right through him. He’d been happy with her for a time, but if she let it go on much longer they were both going to get too committed to this thing between them. Natasha physically _couldn’t_ give him what he really wanted, needed, and he deserved someone who could. 

Right now she was waiting on Peggy, though. The other woman had to make the next move, convincing Barnes. Natasha was absolutely certain that if she could just once get the three of them together, truly together, they’d all realize it was the ideal solution. Then she could let Steve go - by force if she had to - and start the process of patching up the holes in her emotional armour before it fell apart completely.

That was the only way this was going to work out. If she was very lucky she wouldn’t have to end things with Steve badly, and once she’d recovered enough she could enjoy being friends with the three of them. Of course if things ended _very_ badly they could wind up with an enormous mess on their hands if Steve and Natasha were unable to work together anymore, but she didn’t think it would come to that.

And damn it, Barnes was staring at her again. He’d paced for a few minutes and was now propping up the wall between the living room and the bedroom, which put him directly in her line of sight. The stare was less distant and more directed now, but if she’d been forced to pick a word to describe his expression, it would have been ‘confused’. Unless Wanda’s ability to see into minds was rubbing off on him because she’d spent so much time in his head, Natasha had no idea what his issue with her was.

God, she really hoped Wanda’s ability wasn’t catching somehow. Not only was that a terrifying thought in its own right, but if Barnes was somehow eavesdropping on her mental planning the whole thing was going to fall apart.

“Steve, you still have this?” Peggy exclaimed, which at least did the job of drawing Barnes’ attention momentarily. She was standing by one of the bookshelves, holding a round brass case in the palm of her hand.

Natasha knew exactly what she’d found. Honestly she was surprised Peggy hadn’t noticed it before this, although to be fair Steve kept it closed most of the time, so she might not have recognized it. It was the compass they’d dug out of the ice along with Steve and his shield, another of those pieces of his and Peggy’s ‘private’ lives that everyone in America knew about. 

“What, you thought I’d throw it away?” Steve asked, tilting his head at her.

“I assumed it was lost, but at the very least...” Peggy traced the tiny photograph of her inside the casing with one finger. “How on Earth did the picture survive the water?”

It wasn’t often Natasha got to see Steve look completely flummoxed. Not outside of a pop culture discussion, at least. “You know, I have no idea,” he admitted, clearly baffled. “It never even occurred to me.”

“It didn’t,” Natasha told them. She pushed to her feet and moved to stand beside Peggy, looking over the other woman’s shoulder at the antique compass and the black and white photo within. The move not incidentally placed her closer to Barnes, and sure enough he zeroed in on her again, brow furrowed.

“SHIELD replaced the picture from the archives when they realized Steve was waking up,” Natasha continued. She smirked at Steve. “I hear Coulson insisted.”

“Figures.” Steve’s smile was rueful. “Wish I could say thank you. It meant a lot to me that I still had it.”

“Oh, trust me. Meeting you in person was thanks enough to cover just about anything he could have done for you,” Natasha laughed. “The fact that he got to see you in the uniform he had made for you? Pure heaven.”

“This sounds like a story,” Peggy put in, looking fascinated.

“One of the SHIELD agents who helped oversee Steve’s reanimation was a huge fan,” Natasha explained. She drifted to the side, and Barnes followed her with his eyes. His frown was growing, but at least he still didn’t seem to be aggressive. “He helped design the first modern uniform for Captain America, and it was... a bit of an homage to his show costume. I’ll show you the pictures sometime.”

“Tights,” Steve sighed. “It just had to involve tights.”

“Hey, I’ve seen the shots of what they put you in for the USO tour,” Natasha teased him. “What Coulson gave you was a vast improvement over that, spandex or not.”

Steve rolled his eyes, Peggy chuckled, and Barnes was still watching her intently. She was right in front of him, now. Tilting her head back to meet his eyes squarely, Natasha gave him an arch look. “Okay, Barnes, the staring is actually starting to creep me out. _What_?”

It was a risk, confronting him about it, but she was worried if she let it go on much longer he _would_ turn aggressive. Behind her she heard Peggy catch her breath, and from the corner of her eyes she saw Steve sit up straighter, ready to move quickly if he needed to come between them, but Natasha kept her focus on Barnes.

He was looking down at her, his blue eyes shifting as he studied every inch of her face. When he did finally speak, he sounded hesitant and uncertain. “Natashulya?”

The world dropped out from under Natasha, and she only barely managed not to reach out to the wall to steady herself. Vaguely she was aware that she’d stopped breathing and was probably doing a good impression of a fish out of water, but she couldn’t seem to gather her wits.

She should have expected this. She _had_ expected this, and she’d thought she was prepared for it, but more than a month had gone by with absolutely no sign of recognition from Barnes. Natasha had been starting to think he wasn’t going to remember after all, and she’d made the mistake of letting her guard down, just a bit. 

Most importantly, she hadn’t been nearly ready for the sheer impact of the sound of that name from his lips. Only he had ever called her by the affectionate forms of her name, and only when they met secretly after hours; hearing it now, Natasha was swept away on a tide of intimate memories. She hadn’t expected him to lead with that, and she didn’t think there was anything she could have done to brace herself for it.

She’d hesitated far too long, reacted much too strongly, and she wasn’t going to be able to recover enough to play it off. Steve and Peggy were both watching, and this was going to get very messy, very fast. She’d assumed she would have more warning, enough to make certain this confrontation happened in private. If she’d been thinking for even a moment, she’d have realized his staring _was_ her warning.

Now it was far too late to do anything about it, and she needed to answer him. A thousand possible responses flitted through her mind, but in the end there was only one thing she could bring herself to say. Her voice was hoarse, nearly a whisper. “Yasha.”

That was the name she’d known him by, so many years ago. Yakov, which she now knew they’d chosen for him because it was the closest Russian equivalent to James. They’d let him have a name because they’d planned to leave him out of the ice for such a long period, and it was too awkward to have all the girls address their trainer as ‘the asset’.

Confusion turned to astonishment. “It _is_ you,” he exclaimed. He said it in Russian, at least, but she knew Steve would be able to follow some of the discussion and suspected Peggy would as well. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think you’d remember.” More accurately, she’d hoped he wouldn’t, and didn’t want to say or do anything that might remind him. It wasn’t something she liked to think about, and she’d known the revelation would end in a nasty fight with Steve if he found out about it.

Glancing to the side, she confirmed that Steve was even now staring at them both with a hard look. When he saw she was looking, he narrowed his eyes at her, but at least he didn’t try to jump in to demand explanations. This was going to be difficult enough as it was.

Returning her attention to Barnes, she found him biting his lip. He reached up with his right hand, as if to cup her cheek, and she caught him by the wrist before he could make contact. “Don’t,” she told him, forcing her voice to hold steady. “Don’t do that. Don’t go there. I’m not that person anymore, and neither are you. Don’t throw away what you have now for a ghost.”

He was frowning again, with confusion and disappointment and a hint of genuine pain that she’d stopped him. “I loved you. Didn’t I? And you loved me.”

Damn. She’d hoped he at least wouldn’t bring that up specifically. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. He’d been lied to about far too much in his life, and he was only now starting to sort out the truth. If she lied about this, she’d leave him floundering and he might never get it all straight. “In as much as two people as supremely fucked in the head as we were could be capable of that emotion, yeah. We loved each other.”

Steve went tense and started to stand up, but Peggy put her hand on his shoulder and forced him back down. Natasha made a mental note to thank the other woman later. She was already at the limit of the emotional fallout she could handle right this minute.

“What happened? I can’t remember,” Barnes admitted. “We were... we were going to run away. Leave the Red Room, before you graduated.”

“What do you think happened, Yasha?” Natasha laughed, a deeply bitter sound. “They caught us. At least I assume they did, because instead of coming to get me that night you vanished, and the next day someone else took over the sniper training.”

Glancing at Peggy, Natasha felt her already twisted smile slide further from anything resembling amusement. “At least now I can guess what happened. You’d have been driven to make sure she’d be safe without you, or to try to take her with you. The minute they saw you attempting to get to her, they had to know something was up. I’ll give you this much - you must not have told them my name, because they never punished me.”

“I...” Now he looked pained, and she knew he was remembering whatever they’d done to him when they caught him. “They thought I was just trying to rescue Her. Peggy, I mean. They assumed it was because I’d been out so long they were starting to lose control.”

“Well, they were half right.” Natasha swallowed hard. “I searched for you for years, after I joined SHIELD. I honestly don’t know what I thought I could accomplish if I did find you, but I wanted to know what had happened to you. The irony is that when I finally came across you, it wasn’t even my doing.”

To her shame, she had to pause to steady herself before she could continue. “You looked right at me with no recognition, and shot me. Well, shot the man I was guarding through me. I knew then there was no point in searching any more. Even if I could find you again, you’d never have gone with me.”

“No,” he agreed softly. “I wouldn’t have. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“Don’t be.” Natasha shrugged the apology off. “You taught me one of the most important lessons of my life.”

“What’s that?”

“That love is an illusion,” she replied flatly. “It’s not real, there’s nothing concrete to hold on to if someone tries to take it from you. They erased me from your heart like I was never there in the first place. Love is nothing more than a lie we tell ourselves to try to feel less alone.”

“That’s not true.” He was suddenly fierce, and she was surprised until he looked at Steve and Peggy, and she understood his objection. “That’s _not true_ , or I wouldn’t be here now. I’d have killed him, and left her to rot, and never hesitated about either.”

“Maybe,” she granted him. HYDRA had allowed him to retain his love for Peggy, so that wasn’t really an argument, but Steve... he had hesitated over Steve. Shot him four times at close range without killing him, and then dragged him out of the river. What could have possessed him to do that if not love?

Peggy was the one biting her lip now, like she was physically holding in all the questions Natasha could see in her eyes. She had both hands tight on Steve’s shoulders and the strain in her arms suggested she was leaning on him to keep him seated. And Steve...

Oh, there was going to be a fight to end all fights, later tonight. Steve was royally _pissed_ , and it was aimed straight at her. She’d lied to him, and now she’d been caught out. A lie of omission, but it was by far the biggest lie she’d ever fed him, and that was saying something.

“Don’t feel too bad.” Her words were aimed at Barnes, though her eyes lingered on Steve for a moment before she returned her attention to the man before her. “You also taught me the _other_ most important lesson in my life.”

“I’m afraid to ask,” he said grimly.

Her twisted smile eased just a bit, and she could hear the softness in her own voice when she spoke. “You taught me about freedom. You gave me the idea that there could be something better, beyond the Red Room. If not for that, I’d never have taken Clint’s offer to defect and join SHIELD. They left you out of the ice too long, without wiping you, and you got just enough sense of yourself back to pass that desire to escape on to me.”

She was still holding his wrist, so he used his metal arm to catch her by the waist and pull her to him. Natasha resisted at first, but finally gave in with a shudder and let herself rest her cheek on his right shoulder, releasing his hand so he could wrap his arms around her. Just for a minute, she told herself. Just for old time’s sake.

His scent was just as she remembered it, the alluring male musk of his body mixed with the tang of metal and faint ozone of electronics from his arm. He felt the same, too, hard muscles and surprisingly gentle hands. He’d been her first love, and it had taken her a long time to accept that he was forever beyond her reach.

They’d never have made it. She understood that now, with the benefit of hindsight and nearly ten years of experience. They’d have been caught long before they escaped Russia, and what the Red Room would have done to her for trying to leave didn’t bear thinking about. Even if they had won free by some impossible miracle, neither of them had been equipped for life in the outside world. The only thing they knew how to do was kill.

And if they had somehow overcome even that, HYDRA would simply have brought Peggy out of stasis and made certain Barnes found out about it. He’d have been drawn back to protect her, just as they’d programmed him to do, and Natasha would have been left behind. Frightened, lost, and alone. Or worse, _not_ alone. 

No, it was better this way. Everything had worked out for the best.

And yet still, it hurt so much to be there in his arms again.

With an effort, Natasha forced herself to slip free of his hold, taking three steps back to put herself firmly out of his reach. “Don’t,” she told him again when he would have followed. “ _Don’t_ , Yasha. Barnes. _Bucky_. This is the past. You have a future.”

She directed him towards Peggy with her gaze, and when he looked over at the other woman she could see the tormented conflict in his eyes. He’d only just remembered that he loved Natasha, and so for him the emotion was fresh. But it would fade in time, and what he’d felt for her was a drop in the bucket compared to his enduring love for Peggy. 

At least she finally understood why it had never quite felt like she had his full attention. At the time she’d assumed that it was a result of the way the Red Room - HYDRA, as she now knew - had messed up his head and stolen so much of his sense of self, and that was probably part of it as well. But mostly it had been because although he’d somehow come to love her, he’d never really forgotten about Peggy.

“I think perhaps we should go,” Peggy said softly. “It sounds like you both have a great deal to sort through.” She hesitated, looking from Steve to Natasha. “Are you going to be all right?”

It sounded like she was asking about Natasha’s emotional state, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines and know she was concerned about the coming confrontation between Natasha and Steve. He was still silent, clearly holding himself back by force of will and not wanting to start the row in front of their friends.

“Yeah,” Natasha assured Peggy with an ease she wished she actually felt. “Everything will be fine. It’s just... not an easy thing for me to remember.” That was an understatement. She’d known it would be rough, but she hadn’t realized _how_ rough. And it was made all the worse by the fact that it had happened in front of Steve and Peggy.

“I’m sorry,” Barnes told her again, in English this time since Peggy had initiated the language switch. “I’m so fucking sorry, Natashen'ka.”

Again with the damned diminutive. She was going to have to train him out of that, fast, or everyone in the base was going to pick up on it and start using them without realizing what it meant. Not to mention the way her heart squeezed and her breath caught every time he said it.

That was a worry for later, though. Maybe much later. Watching Steve from the corner of her eyes, Natasha hoped she was going to get a chance to worry about it at all.

“It’s all right,” she assured Barnes, and wished she wasn’t lying. Nothing about this was going to be all right.

Her worst-case scenario had just become the most likely outcome. Things were going to end very badly between her and Steve, maybe even badly enough to fuck up their working relationship as well as their personal one. Not only that, but it was going to happen much, much earlier than she’d planned for. 

Steve wasn’t ready. Peggy and Barnes weren’t ready. Without Natasha helping to nudge things along, they might never get over that damned socially ingrained line and find their happiness together. 

And it shouldn’t matter, it _didn’t_ matter, but… Natasha wasn’t ready, either. She’d thought she’d have just a little more time to prepare herself for the pain of separation, to resign herself to the necessity of letting go of Steve.

She didn’t want to lose him, yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only things I know about Russian names are what I was able to pick up from Wikipedia & a Google search. If I've made errors, please let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow Steve managed to wait until his friends were gone before he lost the last tenuous grip he had on his temper. Bucky was already hurting enough tonight after what had just happened between him and Natasha. He didn’t need to deal with Steve’s anger on top of that, even if it wasn’t directed at him.

When the door was safely shut and locked he turned back to Natasha. If he’d been any less furious, the sight of her might have given him pause. She looked wrecked, so vulnerable and fragile it seemed like she might break if he applied any further pressure. The only time he’d ever seen her look worse was immediately after Wanda had gotten into her head. Hell, for all he knew, the thing Wanda had thrown at her was Bucky.

Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t less furious. He was more furious. His temper had never run hot; it went cold instead, like a frozen fire burning in his gut, wrapping his heart in ice to protect him from the ache of her betrayal and blocking out her pain in the process. There were so many things about what had just happened that were wrong, he didn’t even know where to start.

Wait, yes he did. “You lied to me. You _lied_ to me, Natasha. About _Bucky_.”

She was already starting to gather her emotional defences, shutting down and closing him out, burying her feelings until he couldn’t see the depth of them anymore. It wasn’t a smart thing for her to do, in that moment. All he could see in her expression now was defiance, and a little guilt would have done a lot to warm him towards her again. 

“Technically, I didn’t,” she said. Her voice was still unsteady, but it was improving with every word. “I never told you that the time he shot me was my only encounter with the Winter Soldier, just that it was proof he existed.”

“And the file on him? The one you supposedly got from your contacts in Kiev?” He wanted to charge up to her and drive her back against the wall, maybe shake her for good measure, the way he had in the hospital the first time they’d talked about the Winter Soldier. But he refused to let this degenerate into any kind of physical fight.

“I did get it from Kiev, just not as recently as you assumed,” Natasha replied. “I told you I knew chasing him down was a dead end because I’d tried it.”

If she had sounded repentant in the least or stepped up and taken responsibility for her mistake, Steve might still have been able to forgive her. But she was standing there _justifying_ her lies, instead. “You’re splitting hairs and you know it,” he growled. “You purposely led me to believe that was all you knew about him. You played me, deliberately and intentionally.”

“I’m sorry, where is it written that I’m required to spill my heart out to you just to make sure I never commit a lie of omission?” Natasha shot back, getting angry at him in return. “I told you everything you needed to know at the time, Rogers. That I knew who had killed Fury, and that chasing him directly would be a dead end. Nothing else was relevant.”

“Nothing else was _relevant?_ ” Steve’s voice cracked on the last word, and he stared her down in disbelief. “My best God damned friend was _alive_ and assassinating SHIELD agents and you didn’t think that was fucking relevant?”

He saw the change sweep over her face as anger turned to shock, and then to something like grief. When she spoke again her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Steve, I didn’t know he was Barnes. When I knew him, he went by Yakov. I knew he was American, and that he’d been taken prisoner and brainwashed some time during WWII, but that’s all.”

Finally, something approaching remorse. Steve took a couple of deep breaths, trying to steady himself before he answered. “There was a picture of him from before HYDRA had him in his file. I know you’ve read my SHIELD file too, so how did you not recognize a man you were supposedly in love with when you saw him?”

“Try to remember that not everybody has a photographic memory,” Natasha protested. “Yes, I read your file when I knew you were being brought in on the Avenger’s Initiative, but I hardly bothered looking at the pictures of your past associates from the war. I didn’t recognize Peggy’s portrait in the bunker either, did I? I swear to you, I didn’t know he was Barnes until you identified him in that fight.”

“How the Hell am I supposed to believe that?” Steve demanded. “How am I supposed to trust a word you say now? If you could keep secrets from me about something like _this_ , you could be lying about anything.” He paused, but he had to ask. “If you had known it was him, would you even have told me?”

It was the same question he’d put to Fury, and just as then he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

To her credit, Natasha actually answered the question honestly. “In the beginning? If I’d been ordered not to? No, I wouldn’t have told you. But at that time, _yes_ I would have. It definitely would have been relevant!”

“And what about since then? It’s been a _year and a half_ , Romanoff. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to come clean since you found out who he was. If you had told me the truth at any point in the first months, I’d have understood and forgiven you.” That was the part that was eating at him. She’d had a hundred chances, and she’d kept quiet anyway. “You’ve fought beside me, you’ve _searched for him_ beside me and you never said a God damned word.”

“What good would it have done?” she asked. “You already knew he was alive. Nothing I could tell you would have helped you find him faster. I didn’t have any details on what they’d done to him, or how to undo it. He had no idea who I was, so it’s not like you could have used me as bait the way we did with Peggy. There was nothing I could contribute, and I knew you’d be this angry about it.”

“So you lied. You lied, and you kept secrets, even after everything we’ve been through together, everything we’ve been to each other. _Knowing_ how I would feel about it.” 

How could she? How could she have worked with him, slept with him, looked him in the eyes and never shown even the slightest hint about this? “What about after Bucky got here, you had to know this would come out sooner or later. What were you planning to do about it?”

Now shame finally made an appearance in her expression, her eyes sliding away from his as her shoulders hunched. Steve knew her well enough to guess that the guilt wasn’t for what she had done, it was for what she’d planned to do. “You were still going to hide it,” he realized, wishing he was more shocked. “You were, what, going to get him alone, have that conversation, and then convince him not to ever say anything to Peggy or me? Make _him_ lie about it too?”

“I didn’t want to have to talk about it,” Natasha burst out, her emotional barriers cracking again under what must have been extreme strain. “Okay? I didn’t want to have to dredge it all up and rake it over the coals, the most agonizing fucking thing I’ve ever experienced laid out for you to see. He _abandoned me_ and I know that wasn’t his fault, I knew it even back then, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. And knowing I’d have you angry at me about betraying your trust at the same time I was trying to explain all that... I couldn’t do it!”

She was closer to crying than he’d ever seen her, anguished and heartbroken and under any other circumstances he’d have crossed the room and taken her into his arms by now. This was getting out of control. Steve needed to rein his anger in, because they weren’t going to get anywhere productive like this.

And then she went ahead and shattered any hope he might have had of regaining his composure. “Where in our rules did we ever agree that I was obligated to give you every intimate and painful detail of my entire life?” she snapped. “You think just because I slept with you, that gives you the right to demand that from me? I hate to break it to you, but you’re not such an amazing lay that I’m going to be compelled to spill my heart out to you.”

The jab at his skill in bed didn’t miss its target, and wasn’t making it any easier for him to control his anger. They’d fought before, plenty often - they were both stubborn and used to getting their own way. But never like this. 

Now it wasn’t just about the betrayal, Natasha was throwing personal attacks into the fray. He’d never been the type to engage in that kind of mud-slinging, but he finally understood why people did it. It _hurt_ , and the urge to respond in kind, to hurt her in return, was powerful.

This wasn’t going to end well. Steve needed to put a stop to this right the Hell now, before one of them said something that could never be taken back. They could deal with it later, and they’d probably still fight then, but at the moment he was _too_ angry and she was escalating to match him. As emotionally raw as she obviously was after this evening it wasn’t surprising she was lashing out at him in return, but knowing that wasn’t helping him.

“Get out,” he ordered her, his voice hard. “I’m so damned done with you right now. Come back when you can at least admit you’ve done something wrong, instead of trying to justify your actions or hurting me to drive me off topic.”

“That’s it?” she asked, staring at him in disbelief. “You’re just throwing me out? Fight’s over, Romanoff, go fuck yourself?”

“You _broke my trust_ , Natasha.” Steve gripped the back of the couch hard, trying to use the physical connection to anchor and ground himself. “What the Hell did you expect?”

Swallowing, she closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them he could once again see the emotional shutters slamming down. This time she was more successful at it. All the hurt and vulnerability drained away so fast he almost doubted they’d ever really been there, and she was left looking cool and unaffected. “So what does that mean for us?”

As always when she closed down so abruptly, he couldn’t understand how she was able to just turn her feelings on and off like that. He was so angry with her he could barely contain himself, there was no way he’d be able to hide it. Did it mean that her feelings just didn’t run as deep as his?

Had any of what happened between them ever _really_ mattered to her at all? Maybe it had only been an interesting diversion, something to fill the empty spaces of her life with for a time. She’d tried pretty hard to end things when Peggy had come back into his life, after all. 

The way she’d looked at Bucky, the way she’d let him embrace her and buried her face in his shoulder like he was the only lifeline she had to cling to, that was far closer to displaying real love than she’d ever come with Steve. He’d told himself she just needed time to trust in what they had, to bring herself to open up to him. What if he’d only been fooling himself?

Steve didn’t even know how to respond. Anything he said now would be fueled by doubt and betrayal, and part of him knew he’d regret it in the morning. “You don’t want me to answer that right now,” he said instead.

She tilted her head, giving him a sardonic smile. “You just did,” she told him. “You’re going to be a professional about this, right? We have to work together, Rogers.”

The anger he’d been starting to swallow returned, tenfold. He hadn’t thought he could possibly get any more upset with her, but he had to clench his hands into tight fists to keep from punching something. The wall, her, it didn’t much matter at the moment. Suddenly he had a great deal more sympathy for Bucky’s violent outbursts.

“If you think for one second that I would _ever_ let my personal issues interfere with me doing my duty... you still don’t know me at all, do you Romanoff.” He could hear how cold his voice was, and maybe that was his version of the way she shut down after all. “Are we done?”

The words hung between them, taking on more weight than he’d intended. He’d only meant to ask if she was going to let him end the argument, but it could as easily refer to their relationship as a whole, especially after his earlier response about the same thing.

Natasha looked back at him for a moment, her gaze weighing and judging him, and then shrugged as if none of it mattered to her at all. “I guess we are.” 

He couldn’t be sure which question she was answering – but he was deathly afraid it was the one that was going to put the last nail in the coffin of everything they had between them.

She was gone before he could take any of it back or attempt to fix it, before he could even decide if it was a good idea to try right now. Growling, Steve turned and smashed his fist into the nearest wall, but the way the drywall shattered and the wooden stud beneath cracked wasn’t nearly enough to cool him off. 

He wanted to destroy something, rip it apart and pound it to pieces. The heavy bag wasn’t going to cut it, not tonight. He needed a _fight_ , needed to deal damage and take it in return, to let his emotional agony bleed out by replacing it with good old fashioned physical pain and exhaustion. Maybe if he did that, he could gain enough perspective to start to put things right.

Assuming he could bring himself to trust her again, after this. 

Assuming she would even let him try.


End file.
